Langston Hughes :: essays research papers

DoorknobsLangston Hughes is considered by many readers to be the most significant black poet of the twentieth century. Except for a few examples, all his poems atomic number 18 about social injustice in America. The somber tone of his writing often reflected his mood. Race relations were present in almost his whole career, spare-time activity him from his first poem to his last.The poem Doorknobs was written in 1961 after his subpoena to appear before Senator McCarthy for subversive activities. Although many other poems by Hughes deal with prejudice, race, or politics, Doorknobs deals with life itself. Hughes anger over the political attacks are seen on many of his poems. Hughes Doorknob describes a child who seems to be afraid of life and afraid of the adults in his life By the end of the poem this child is now an adult himself who appears to be insecure, and perchance, afraid of life itself. This man portrays a sad, non-confident, scared life as we can see on the lines 1 to 3. We experience first hand the lack of control, the terrorizing feelings this door holds for this childThe unsubdivided silly terror of a doorknob on a door that turns to let in lifeFrom lines 4 to 10, we can assume that we are reading of a child who is terrorized of the grownups that live with him perhaps he is an abused childon two feet standing,walking, talking,wearing dress or trousers,maybe drunk or maybe sober,maybe smiling, laughing, happy,maybe problematic in the terrorof a yesterday past grandpaLines 11 to 15 reinforce the terror this child is feeling and carrying with him. It is apparent that the child is experiencing roughly kind of abuse, either mental or physicalwhen the door from out there openedinto here where I, antenna,recipient of your coming,received the talking imageof the simple silly terrorFrom lines 16-25 Hughes repeats the first stanza of the poem with minor changes to the order of t the words this perhaps is now when the child is now remembering his past. Another comment is that when the child became a grownup instead of being afraid of the adults in his life, he is afraid now of life itself, and death.of a door that opensat the bit of a knob